“Some years ago, I was the guest speaker before a senior’s group on a fieldtrip to the art school where I taught. I was asked about my life as an artist in a conversation that ranged from the applied to the philosophical. Midway into the conversation a gentleman, who had been a student of mine at the school, raised his hand with a quizzical look and asked me, “If everything’s already been done, how do I create something that is original?”

“I said to him, and to the group, that I had come to a point in my life, I was in my forties, where I found it more important to be authentic over some striving to be original. “By being authentic,” I said, “if originality happens, it’s an outcome, a byproduct of your intentions and not the goal”, or something like that.

My gentleman student nodded his head in agreement as I went on to field more questions from the group. After ten minutes his hand went up again, with the same furrowed brow, he asked me, “What do you mean by being authentic?”

“What I mean by being authentic,” I said, “is that, for such a long time, I struggled, perplexed with the idea of claiming the label of artist for myself, this most vague of professional titles loaded with assumptions and expectations. What is an artist? Is there a single, simple definition that you’d be satisfied with? For you and others? Not really, is there?”

I decided that I would, from then on, pursue being Pieter, just Pieter, and see what happens. Be me, with all the curiosity and complexity I see and feel, summoning the confidence to embrace the different creative feelings effervescing within me, so that I might do my best to give them voice.”